Who Is Driving Our Ethanol Policy? And Why Does It Matter?

by Jeffrey T. Manuel and Thomas D. Rogers (The Hill/Changing America) To prepare America for a green future, you have to understand the power politics of the present. -- ... But the real drivers of biofuel policy in both countries (U.S. and Brazil) are powerful multiparty blocs of legislators representing rural areas and agricultural interests. Understanding the political dynamics behind biofuel policy is necessary to legislate effectively and will be essential for the coming transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

Conflict over biofuels policy is framed as Trump vs. farmers or agribusiness vs. big oil, but neither framework accurately captures what’s really pushing biofuel policy. Conflict over the RFS pits a bipartisan bloc of midwestern legislators against the Trump administration, showing that region prevails over party when it comes to biofuels. For instance, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) both strongly support the RFS and oppose the Trump administration using waivers to undercut RFS blending requirements.

There is nothing new about U.S. biofuel policy being set by bipartisan blocs of senators and representatives. In the depths of the Great Depression, farmers across the Corn Belt demanded that alcohol made from excess crops be blended into gasoline to raise crop prices. Iowa in 1933 debated a law that would have required all fuel sold in the state be a blend of 90 percent gasoline and 10 percent alcohol. Alcohol fuel mandates reached Capitol Hill when Bennett Champ Clark (a Missouri Democrat) and Lester Dickinson (an Iowa Republican) proposed nationwide subsidies for alcohol-gasoline blends. These Great Depression “power alcohol” bills never passed, but they illustrated biofuel’s power to inspire midwestern legislators. Ethanol returned to the nation’s political agenda amid the oil crisis of the 1970s. By the end of that decade, a powerful “gasohol lobby” in the Senate pushed former Presidents Carter and Reagan to support ethanol.

(F)uel distributors will face a financial penalty for buying and selling fossil fuels.

For decades now, a formidable, cross-party caucus has kept generous federal support flowing to Brazilian agriculture, including bioenergy. Known popularly as the Rural Bench or “ruralistas,” these politicians comprise the largest single interest group in Brazil’s congress. By some counts, a stunning 72 percent of senators and deputies have ties to the Rural Bench, if not formal membership. The group has also spawned a formidable Cane Bench, dedicated to advocating for sugar and ethanol and claiming nearly 40 percent of the Chamber of Deputies.

For ethanol’s supporters, it means increasing party polarization threatens to undermine the cross-party regional alliances that now drive biofuel policy.

In hindsight, energy policy during the 20th century was unusually global and concentrated due to oil’s dominance.

Unlike oil, renewable energy is more likely to be dispersed and regionally variable, such as solar power’s dominance in the southwest, wind energy coming from the Great Plains and biofuels from the Corn Belt. So energy policy for a green future needs to grapple with the influence of these regional power blocs to legislate effectively. READ MORE